Marked for life
by Felinis
Summary: soulmates aren't always a good thing
1. Chapter 1

**felinis: so among all the AUs that are widespread across fandom soulmate AUs are my least favorite. I just think they're wrong and frankly kind of creepy. Also I don't like the idea of being told I'm going to like someone and that one where once you meet you see color bothers me on so many levels as an artist. Soooo yeah... that's where this came from. I'll probably write more drabbles like this**

Yuri's never been sure that any of the emotions in his head were actually his since he first hit puberty at eleven and got his soulmark. He remembers walking one moment and looking at the fountain and how in the warm sun it be nice to play in it. He remembers the faint click along with the sting from the mandatory metal band on his hand that all children were required to wear by Zaphias law. Tha loud clank as it fell on the ground and feeling his heart clench as the mark burned onto his writs.

Hanks had told him he was 'a bit of an early-bloomer' in a way that spoke of pity that curdled Yuri's stomach and the pain of that mark singeing itself and crawling in his skins burned enough that it made him cry. He's not sure why but after that he remembers feeling somewhat hollow as his fingers would rub on the diamond-like mark on his wrist. Flynn would ask him what was wrong but Yuri never had an answer. He was like that probably a few weeks feeling nothing but also feeling foreign in his own skin.

He'd stare at the band on Flynn's wrist and wonder simply if soon Flynn would also feel this.

Yuri had been scared about meeting his soulmate. He'd see the way they were, how everyone one of them looked a disturbing mix of miserable and happy. How none of them knew how to love anyone else or even could. Yuri understood that this was simply the way of the world. Everyone got a mark and nobody was left unloved.

All happy marriages.

Happy endings.

Good things.

Yuri never talked about it but the emotions or rather the lack of while his body waited on its perfect match made him miserable. It was pretty normal for children to spend months, even years, in a slump before the mark kicked in. It's part of why he doesn't remember being twelve outside of the growth spurt.

There other little things though. Moments of clarity where he would suddenly just get mad at authority or mindless frustration. The first few signs of aimless pubescent lust peeking its head at him. Just little mindless things that he couldn't attach to anyone or anything.

When he watched Flynn's eyes widen and his grin fall to a grimace one day Yuri didn't say anything about it. He didn't point out the fact that his eyes were watering or the fact that the band was on the ground. He refused to say anything until Flynn laughed morosely and held up his wrist to show that glowing mark.

"I guess I'm your soulmate." Yuri can't forget the way Flynn said those words. The way he looked at his wrist like he wanted to tear the skin off or the resigned false joy in his voice. The chunkiness to how he said it that still rattles in Yuri's ears. He remembers all of it.

But worst of all he remembers how in that moment reality snapped back in place and Flynn was at the center of it.

"That's not so bad." It was meant as assurance, but Yuri knows that's not the case.

It's not like he would never have picked Flynn out of a crowd and loved him on his own but in that moment- seeing that mark – feeling suddenly like he could breath- Yuri hated him. He was ready to scream and be angry at Flynn but then a headache rolled in and he couldn't. His misery morphed into happiness and somewhere a little voice said that he LOVED Flynn. That he would always LOVE Flynn. Nothing, literally nothing, could stop him from loving Flynn.

But he just wanted- he didn't-

Yuri's legs turned to jelly and he recalls turning into an emotional slop on the floor sobbing as he tried to will his own emotions past the mark on his wrists. He remembers looking at Flynn who was curled back in fear while Yuri's brain just fell apart and he ended up curled in ball muttering "I love Flynn" in a mantra till the fear and his own emotions fell into what it was supposed to be.

They don't speak of this for obvious reasons. They don't like to acknowledge that even the slightest attempt to rebel results in agony that always leaves them blissed out.

They're told they'll get used to it. Learn to just channel it out. That one day it will stop feeling foreign and they'll do it on their own.

And that's what he fears more than ever.

It's not real.

It can't be real.

They could still hate the mark though. They just couldn't hate each other. Even though a part of him wishes in the back of his head he could though.

Just to know. Just so he could choose. Just because he's never sure when any of it is real.

Does Yuri actually love him? He can't tell and when you're a frustrated adolescent with no control over anything- not even your emotions there's nowhere to go! Nothing to do but bite back the tears and the rage and hope Flynn doesn't notice because you share a room.


	2. Red Pill

**fel: ****here I go writing again. Side note everyone I know is shocked I don't like soulmates. It really is inherently disturbed. Think about it, even in just the whole find a matching mark thing there is a societal implication that you cannot feel true love or happiness without it. It would be commoditized and that is disgusting. Some people would even fake it for celebrity. there's just a lot to unpack there**

When Flynn was seventeen there was a guy he wanted to like. They were for the lack of better words pretty much everything they wanted to date at the time. He really wanted to. He wanted to love someone other than Yuri just so he could look back and say that it was real. But he couldn't. He couldn't do it any time he tried.

And he tried, beautiful girls? Sobbing mess on the floor feeling guilt he didn't want to experience.

Kisses with other people? Their face would remind him of Yuri… every road lead back to Yuri and Flynn is not proud of the thought but he was a kid- he's still pretty much a kid in some regard- he wanted to kill Yuri. If Yuri was dead he could be free. If Yuri was dead he'd be like the others who lost someone sad but liberated.

Living with someone, growing up with them, a mark on your wrist that you burn off your flesh till it crawls on your back so you never have to look at outside a mirror, the knowledge that anyone you think you could love in that fashion is barred by a needle-like prick in your brain that grows until you fall apart.

Flynn hates it. Probably even more than Yuri because Yuri- Yuri does not give a shit about romance or hooking up with people. He's shown sexual interest but for the most part, he doesn't care so he doesn't even attempt to fight fate. "Why bother trying? Even I get far along their face is just gonna start looking like yours at some point and I don't want that."

It's understandable but also for Flynn growing up it was hell because he honestly didn't want to think of Yuri in that fashion. There's something about growing up with someone and seeing them with a face covered in acne or knowing how grimy and gross they were twenty-four-seven because you share a room that damps the mysticism of erotic thought to a halt.

There's also the fact that Yuri looked like he was twelve till he was about sixteen and they both know it. They even joked about how Yuri's face finally hit puberty with the rest of him. But that was just the carnal side. It said absolutely nothing about the emotions.

How Yuri was just a friend and sometimes in the mix of it all he wanted less than that.

All in all, there was a lot of reason but another was simply Flynn wanted the freedom to choose. He really tried to choose. In the end, the hand of anyone else was out of reach and he continued to say it was fine. That it was okay.

When they joined the knights, Flynn was actually excited at the prospect that he and Yuri would be in separate quarters go to separate units but the mark was where the rub lied.

"Ya know what happens if you separate soulmates for too long? It's not pretty."

"But, we want to be apart!" Flynn had protested to the instructor and all they did was shake their head and tsk.

"Look, you're still young. I get it. You think you know best on who you want and how you want it to be but you don't. You can't." The officer seemed sad when he looked at him. Like he understood Flynn's desire for rebellion that many others wanted in on as a phase you grow out of. That you'll realize the mark was right from day one, but Flynn has never been sure.

He can't be sure because it never felt like free will.

Watching Yuri fall on his knees and cry 'I love you' every time he rebelled or blood dripping from his sinuses every time he tried to cheat on Yuri. Any act of rebellion, any act of fighting, every moment of just hoping that he could love another platonically…

Flynn wanted his goddamn freedom back!

It was a small red drop you could almost mistake for candy. "You take this and it'll trick your brain long enough to think you're with your soulmate."

"Really?" Flynn was hesitant but he'd been told by a lot of people it was a great cheat. Little drawbacks and you got to be free even for just four hours a pop. "Are there really no side effects?"

"Eh, it's a bit of a minor high and a little addicting but it's worth it to get a break from that shit." He passed over the gald and popped it in his mouth on his next date.

It was surprisingly acidic and felt like eating a solid chunk of vinegar but the feeling was near instant. If only for that time he was free and it was great. He kissed and he laughed. He did stuff he couldn't before and yes, the only real drawback was a minor fuzz over his memories like he'd been drinking.

Yuri asked if Flynn really hated him that much one night after he'd been using them for a few months. "It's not a matter hate. I just want a choice."

He took another and let the feeling roll in him as he went out that night.

"You know those things are bad for you right? One of the guards said it rots your brain if you use it long term."

Flynn had heard that but fuck off with that logic. He feels free! Actually free! Like that mark isn't there and he has a choice in his life because every other choice besides this and joining the knights feels like fate laid it out some way. He didn't choose to be born a slum kid who watched his mom die. He didn't choose to love Yuri. He didn't choose to grow up the way he did!

There are so many little things that happened because he had to. Love shouldn't be one of them.

"You can't keep it up forever." Yuri's voice cuts deep because Flynn knows it. He knows that these pills will kill him eventually but he's scared to stop. He's scared because he started dating this one person and Flynn really likes them. He really likes it.

He clutches the pill bottle tightly and there's so much guilt in him because he knows that even if quiets right now he's still going to be tempted because free will felt good to a point that he almost didn't mind. It's Yuri hand that takes it out and chucks it out the window.

"You don't need that shit. Just fight it on your own terms."

It doesn't stop Flynn from buying more and Yuri keeps throwing it out and keeping an eye on him.

He starts crying in Yuri's chest at some point during the night after his body starts going through withdrawal symptoms, "I'm sorry you're stuck with me."

All he gets is a gentle rub on his back as the mark corrects Flynn for his unfaithfulness. He doesn't remember what he sobbed out in pain but he knows that he woke up in the infirmary with a high fever and that Yuri suddenly looked different.

Lovely would probably be a good word. He's not sure how to put it but looking at Yuri now hurt with an unknown emotion that made him want to cry. So he buried it. And when it bubbled up when Yuri smiled at him he buried it more.

He'll fight fate with everything he has. Because Flynn is getting a choice in this and no mark on his back is going to tell him what to do.


	3. Seperate Paths

**felinis: ****I got back into writing fanfiction and being on social media solely because I was lonely at college and have no friends or social life. I did this to fight loneliness and the longer I'm online in a fandom the lonelier I feel. And I'm wondering if I should disappear again but then I wouldn't know what to do after**

When Yuri left the knights the thing that concerned him the most was the warning he got from others about what it would do to leave. It wasn't said often but it was common knowledge of why soul mates do not part till death. That wasn't even mentioning how Flynn changed after the pill snap. It wasn't enough for most people to notice but when no one was looking his eyes would glaze over a little and his breathing would turn shallow.

Yuri had asked about that from a doctor while Flynn was catatonic in bed almost a month and all he got was a said shake from their head. "Your soulmate is never gonna function the same way ever again."

"Oh, come on, it can't be that bad," Yuri had huffed hoping that reaction would make the news go down easier.

The doctor held up the pill bottle Yuri had found stashed in Flynn's dresser, "You said he was taking these for over six months?"

"I mean about a year if we're gonna be accurate."

The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose in absolute frustration. "Look, I'm just being honest, he's lucky to be alive. It's important you stopped him when you did because this level of dosage," He shook the bottle and the pills rattled inside, "Would have killed him probably in the next month. His brain is fried. When he gets back to normal he'll still be fried."

Yuri swallowed and tried not to think about how when he last saw Flynn he was inanely letting out a stream of love based sentiments. "Is he... is he gonna have to quit the knights?"

"Probably not given some time, but he's going to really need you nearby. I'd hold his hand every few hours or something. Just give him contact while his brain fixes itself."

"How long will that be?"

"He's fucked for life, kid. Those pills he was taking, we call them grievances because they're prescribed to people who lost their soulmate and could be suicidal. They are not meant to be used long term in any capacity or on anyone with a living soulmate.

What he did was trick his brain into thinking you were there being absolutely happy all the damn time. Those drugs are gonna make him paranoid when you aren't around no matter how much he hates it because his body is convinced that something is wrong with him otherwise."

Yuri didn't want to believe it, "So he's going to spend the rest of his life having a panic attack if I so much as leave the room?"

"No. The first few weeks, but the mark will relevel him out till he can have some distance. He's just really going to need you nearby pretty much always. Otherwise… well, ya know."

Yuri does know. He knows because he's seen it on the streets in the shadiest parts of the Lower Quarter and he's seen the signs in couples who tried to run away. He's seen that invisible binding chain snap with a recoil that left the people broken. That's why he didn't press further.

Flynn clung to him a lot for the first few weeks he was back. A lot of people thought it was sweet but Yuri would always note the lines in Flynn's mouth and how he consistently shook with slight rage or how that glazing was frosted in frustration. Like Flynn was trying to fight his own mind.

Flynn would sometimes just stare at him at night with both his body and mind elsewhere saying, "I love you."

And it freaked Yuri the fuck out because Flynn would never say I love you to him before. That was something Flynn had been incredibly iron-willed about no matter how much he thought back against the mark and was lashed back at. He never said 'I love you' because Flynn understood just like him that this wasn't real. This wasn't his choice.

Yuri didn't even give two shits about dating! Flynn did and for some reason, he's supposed to think it's super awesome that Flynn's tied to him? Yuri's not what Flynn wants because Yuri doesn't want anything like romance. Yuri just wants to live and be himself.

He just wants the right to opt out.

So every time Yuri heard those words he would ignore them because it's not Flynn saying it. No, Flynn's off in a dream then. Same with any time he tried to kiss him or told he was beautiful.

It was actually one the happiest moments in his life when Flynn had said he should leave the knights. "You don't have to pretend you want to stick around."

"We made a promise as kids didn't we?"

Flynn's smile had been absolutely venomous, "Take a different path then."

"Flynn, but you're not-"

"Don't fucking stand around being miserable for my sake just because I'm a little sick! I'm suffocating with you! So either you leave the knights or _I _will." Yuri is not proud to say it, but in that moment seeing Flynn so livid had made his heart pound with joy.

That emotion- that rage- felt real. It felt like the first real thing he'd seen from Flynn towards him in forever and Yuri felt like a weight was being lifted.

Flynn wanted him gone.

Flynn wanted him gone and he wanted to be gone.

So that night he left his room with a small sack of clothes and the knowledge he'd come for everything else in the morning. He kept walking towards the door even when Flynn's brain seemed to snap like a switch and he turned to begging and holding him down

He ignored the kind words that wormed around the ways Flynn would scream for him get out his life.

Yuri left and moved back into his old room at the Comet. He left and felt free and himself now that Flynn wasn't around as a constant reminder. Now that he just could be utterly alone. It felt good to be alone in this sense. Like he didn't need another person always at his side.

The only downside was that Flynn did still need him and Yuri's wrist would burn and burn until they made contact again. It was never long. Just a brief brush of their hands or long gazes and a nod. Simple things that connected their paths ever so briefly before they parted again.

This way, this method of living their life Yuri could live with it. Yuri was happy with it.


	4. Break

**fel:they're not all gonna be in order ya know. Also kill me it's finals.**

"Sir, Yuri Lowell is missing."

Those words came a little late though because Flynn felt it far sooner. His heart burns and his fingers shake while the rest of him collapses on the ground. His throat closes and his eyes water from the stinging.

The sky is very blue despite the monster above them whirling in a void of death now staring back at him.

He keeps gasping and gagging for air but nothing comes as he rattles is his armor.

He's not sure how to describe what he's feeling in between the twitches and sweat breaking out in his skin. The best word might be hell.

Yuri

Flynn feels a hand grip his and the call for help. His ears pop and his nose buzzes.

Yuri.

That mark boils under his skin and his mind goes to all the times he tried in vain to get rid of it only for it to bubble back to the surface. Is this it? Is this what eat means to lose a soulmate?

A sob as Flynn continues to struggle to breathe.

Yuri.

He can't be dead. Yuri can't be dead! That's not- this isn't fair- this isn't- he wanted but- Flynn feels like his heart might explode as his stomach turns. Flynn wanted – this wasn't how it was supposed to be!

He feels something crawl down his nose slowly, thick and sticky as his body tries to hack it out. His head is splitting!  
_Ugh_

_Agh_

_Eeeggh_

It's a black viscous liquid that smells like salt and clumps like putty. In all the pain clouding his concentration, he can see a small glint of metal. So that was it?

His eyes grew heavy.

That was the source of all of it. One small little bit of metal?

All went black.

When he woke up Flynn felt aside from the status of being fine- nothing. He felt nothing. Lying down in a hospital bed looking perfectly healthy without a scratch – but empty. He feels nothing. He wants to cry about that but nothing happens. His eyes water a little but he doesn't cry and he's not even that sad about it. Then he thinks…

Yuri

Yuri's dead. Flynn idly looks at the scar on his wrists and thinks about how this was he dream for so long. He's free. Finally, truly free! "You were supposed to be free with me." He wishes he was crying. It's the perfect moment for tears and his eyes are dry and his mind isn't even heavy.

He finds a mirror and looks it his back. "It's gone…"

Shards of glass clatter on the floor as Flynn walks on.

**fel:****oh no I killed off Yuri. Now how will I ever write a post zaude reunion? She said sarcastically while eating her emotional support waffle**


	5. Mistakes

**fel:i'm down by almost $1000 after my first attempt of vending for a con and for some reason I want to impale myself. not because i'm sad but because I occasionally go in and out of wanting to eviscerate myself or something**

"Flynn's your soul mate isn't he?" Estelle asks him over the campfire.

Yuri looks idly at the mark on his wrists and the catches the way she leers at it.

"Yeah, we're soulmates," He says stoking the flames with a branch. "What about it?"

Estelle looks down at her wrist with a soft solemnness."I just was curious since Flynn never talked about it like you were."

Yuri fidgets a little, "We don't make a big deal about it."

He doesn't like to think about the fact that the last time he visited Flynn there was a pile of pills set aside. When Yuri asked about them Flynn had awkwardly passed a bottle between his hands and explained that he was technically still taking the drugs. His hands shook subtly as he tried to laugh off what was clearly a medical problem.

"It's just to keep me normal while I work."

"You really okay?" They were still friends no matter what may happen between them Yuri and Flynn were still friends. That's something Yuri wants to believe and friends care about the well being of other friends.

"Yeah, I'm okay. It's taken a lot of work but I'm perfectly okay."

"I'm glad." Yuri held up a hand and they gave each other a brief high-five. He wanted Flynn to be all right after everything. The glove covering his wrist at least made it easier to ignore. Yuri couldn't burn or cut the mark away like Flynn to hide it from sight. Doing that does nothing but cause him needless pain and is useless in solving the real problem.

It becomes obvious that he spent too long on those thoughts by the crinkle on Estelle's face. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Flynn does that too. I guess you have that in common." Yuri is both unsurprised by that and disappointed that it still happens. He wants Flynn to be normal and himself again but short of a miracle that's never going to happen. If he's honest the fact that Estelle thinks that it's something they have common is almost insulting but he's not going to be mean and bring it up. Estelle doesn't know any better.

"You know your soulmate?" Yuri asks and watches Estelle clamp her wrist in shame.

"No." She scratches the glove where the mark is. "I- I haven't. I'm told the council knows but they won't tell me for political reasons."

Yuri doesn't want to admit it but there's a hint of jealousy at that statement. Sure, he knows she's in that awful emotional state where the world is out of focus and emotions are wrapped in cotton but she's free. She still hasn't been tied up to another person and it feels cruel to want her to feel like him and the rest of the people he knows. But, it also is beautiful and rare to see someone like her.

Free

"Do you want to?" He asks and watches her body slump a little.

"I… I don't know."

A silence falls for a time until Estelle speaks up again. "Are you happy being in love with Flynn?"

Yuri wonders if he should say it. That he's not or at least has never felt like it. It, as Flynn would always say, never felt like free will. It's not his choice and if Yuri's honest there've been times where kissing or even hand-holding kind of made him want to hurl. "We're not in love."

"But even platonically-"

He holds up a hand. "We're not. We're friends who just ended up being soulmates. But, something you learn sooner than later is that you can just not want to be with your soulmate." The only way to fight system is with apathy and that's fine for a time but it's not a real solution.

Yuri watches for her expression and notes there's a quiet understanding as Estelle scoots a little closer to him. "Say, if soulmates weren't real – say that people could choose anyone, would you still pick Flynn."

Yuri thinks on it and he just shrugs and mumbles, "Who knows. I personally don't care enough to even choose. Why?"

"I guess, I just would like one choice," Estelle says and isn't that the contradiction of the fucking century. Emotionally free from love but physically trapped in a cage. The jealousy fades when he puts it in that perspective.

"You always have the ability to make a choice. It's just a matter of how hard you're going to fight for it." Yuri stretches out on the ground letting his spine relax.

"But what if you make the wrong choice? I mean, when you put it that way it makes perfect sense why we have soulmates. Even if we don't think it's right now it doesn't mean it isn't."

"Part of life is making mistakes. Why should dating Flynn not be one?" Yuri wanted those mistakes and Estelle would figure it out sooner or later that mistakes felt great. Well, not immediately but definitely in the follow through.

There's a joy in the idea that you can not make the right choice when faced with fate pointing a large sign saying which one is the right one. Yuri wanted the unknown in whether what he gets is good because that sign has always yelled and pushed its way to the front of his gaze.

He wanted to break that sign and run away from it and never look back, but he couldn't. Hell, he needed to see Flynn in at least a few weeks so the mark wouldn't hurt them both. It's a part of it all. It's just how it is.

And he hates it. Just let it be a mistake. Let Flynn go and be actually okay and him not have guilt for not being able to help Flynn through his fight. Maybe if Yuri did love Flynn and just gave in they could be happy but that's not him. That's not Yuri either.

That's not anything they can be.

Maybe fate made a mistake. If it did that would be a relief.


	6. Vinegar

**i'm consistently in a state of emotional stress and writing doesn't actually help. it just distracts**

Flynn functioned in society due to a series of a complicated and somewhat hazardous prescription of drugs. His life without Yuri depended on them to keep him functioning when a part of him would whisper darkly over his shoulder that he could always just run back to him.

That Yuri was his soulmate and therefore what he needed. That he needed Yuri because he loved Yuri and anything less than that- the pen in his hand snapped.

Flynn was well aware of how much his body screamed and demanded for Yuri but he just learned to tune it out. Learned to bury that want to the depths of his soul and live with the joy of being without Yuri. Of coming home to an empty room.

This was what he wanted so why the hell did his body have to make him cry? Flynn didn't want to cry.

Or at least it used to…

Flynn looked over the paperwork in his hands and signed off on it as he debated what his next course of action should be. So much to do and never enough time. He sighed.

After years of his emotional state being wrecked and needed to be managed by medication, it felt wrong to be essentially normal. Oh, sure he saw the pitied looks in people's eyes as they muttered what was probably something along the lines of 'I heard his soulmate was killed by Alexei' or something of the sort.

"The last commandant didn't have a soulmate either."

"What's your point?"

"Well, doesn't that mean he'll turn out like the last one. Think about it, people who lose their soulmates always turn out a little nutty."

Flynn would subtly cough into his hands when he heard statements like these to remind people he was still there. He understood the logic though. Free will was the anomaly and now Flynn was a part of it.

Alone and a part of it.

Sodia gripped his hand in assurance, "Sir, I didn't realize that you and Yuri..."

"It's fine." It's not fine. But it has to be. Flynn just wishes he felt more for the loss. But all of it seems to have just poured out on top of Zaude and left him empty. He feels guilt about that.

"He was my best friend you'd think I'd cry more," He thinks.

Maybe Flynn was just too broken to brother.

"You don't need to pretend for me. I understand that he was- that he meant-"

"Please leave Sodia." He just wants to be alone. When all the eyes are gone his hands drift to a bottle of pills that he knows he technically no longer needs.

Just one. Just one to make him feel grief. Just to make him feel normal.

Flynn swallows the pill and takes that familiar vinegar in. A warmth spreads and Flynn finds himself taken aback by the way his eyes water.

His eyes watered and sorrow pools in his chest. He's not sure why but this melancholy leaves him with a disturbed sense of joy.

He's glad that this pill is forcing him to cry over loss. To feel something when every time he's thought of Yuri in the past few weeks it's been nothing. So much nothing.

Is that it? Is this just how freedom is?

Or is it simply he just doesn't know how to deal with loss? God, he should be stronger than this. He should be better because it's pathetic that he's run back to the taste of vinegar.

He's running back to what fate had decided was the taste of love. Strangely he can't even argue with that logic because really what else would love taste like, sugar?

No sugar is cloying and empty. It's one note on its own and even mixed in facets like chocolate and such it's fairly simple. Love is - should be - complex and messy.

But, love as much as Flynn has tried to fight it is not sour like lemons. No love is bitter and it bites but it is sweet. It does stick and it does burn in the wound but it stays with you like a medicine. It's healthy.

It's vinegar.

It's getting frustrated and yelling on a summer evening but still laughing by the fountain later. It's forgiving after being completely pissed at another. It's so many things and the longer he thinks about it the closer he gets to smashing those pills till they're dust under his foot.

"Fuck you, fate," Flynn spits and recomposes himself.


	7. Free

**fel: oh look where we at more words.**

She was four when she first learned the truth about soulmates or rather when she overheard the nobility speaking with her mother about taking Estelle into the palace.

"She clearly has the royal blood in her and a proper lineage must remain. She's too important to risk letting her love be someone from the common rabble."

"Or worse another woman. If she can't carry the family name there's no use in having one." Estelle watched the nobles pull out that all too familiar golden band that she knew children like her always wore.

Her mother had taken it gracefully, "I understand. Thank you for considering her worthy of such an honor."

"Thank your blood."

Estelle had been so confused by the exchange at the time but quickly she learned the truth and what they really meant when the time came she hit puberty and no mark appeared on her wrist. Estelle had been absolutely terrified at this and when she asked why she didn't have soulmate it was because she was above them.

"You were considered special enough that fate has decided any choice you make will lead to happiness." Her nanny had said as she wisped about an old folk tale of those with good hearts and breeding would sometimes be born free of such marks. Especially royalty. "It's just proof you're special beyond compare."

But that couldn't be right. It wasn't right! Estelle had powers yes but soulmates where fates way of saying here is your happy ending. She'd never made an important decision once in her life and she was supposed to believe she'd earned the right to just choose correctly. That it always be right?

No.

So she looked closer on the gold band she'd been given and through some extensive needling with one of the maids was allowed to compare the bands. They were virtually identical except hers was lighter and when she tore hers open she found it was pure leather and metal. None of the intricate machinery of the other band.

She'd not been allowed a soulmate…

As she sat on the bed staring at the inner mechanisms of the band a thought occurred to her. What becomes of the would-be soulmate if their other half never shows up? Do they end up alone forever or are they just tossed along to someone else? What become of that match? Is it just an endless spiral of the system reshuffling till it says in defeat 'good enough'?

"Who would I end up even marrying?" She asked aloud on the bed in the realization that if practically everyone had a soulmate that made the pool of people she could ever come to love not just small but astronomically so.

Softly she asked one of the councils about this because she was certain they knew the truth intimately and was not unsurprised to learn that, yes, she had five potential preapproved suitors all of varying degrees in nobility ready for her to marry.

"But why?"

"Why else to keep nobility as nobility!" The councilman proclaimed, "If we left everything to fate then we might have been forced to interbreed with the peasants. You're but a young and frankly foolish child but we have oracles to check on this sort of thing and if left to your own devices you'd be sullying the royal line."

"But, if they're my soulmate then-"

"Allow, me to stop you right there miss Estellise. You seem to be under a delusion that soulmates are a good thing. I assure you that those with them are miserable." His hand had been hard as slipped across her shoulder. "Imagine being like them, your emotions strung along by a mark and your mind slowly reprogrammed to love a single person even if you don't want to."

The contempt in his voice had been so cutting, "They're practically livestock compared to us. Do take care to remember that."

Estelle didn't want to believe it was true. It couldn't be true! It wasn't right, but at the same time looking at her blank wrist underneath her gloves the words rang in her head.

People always spoke so wistfully about their soulmate.

And then she met Flynn Scifo after he was assigned to serve as a guard. She overheard he was given the position because he was getting readjusted after some illness and frankly Estelle was ridiculously easy to guard.

"May I ask you something?" She'd said to him one day in the garden.

"Certainly."

"When you daze off what are you thinking about?" The lines on Flynn's face crossed and his nose curled.

"My soulmate, unfortunately." She's slightly cocked her head to the side and he took in a deep breath and rubbed at his temple. "I… I messed up my mind a while back and well, I guess the best way to put it is I need to think about them every few hours to keep functioning."

Those words again rattled as Flynn tried his best to keep a perfect smile through what she saw underneath was frustration in his eyes, "Do you not like thinking about them?"

"I don't like that I _need_ to think about them."

She felt so left out of the loop. She couldn't relate to Flynn's experience of love and devotion or the feelings in that in between where you've yet to meet. She couldn't relate to the frustration of not being able to struggle against loving someone. Estelle… Estelle couldn't feel like him.

She had free will to choose on her own and yet she was so constricted and bound endlessly in wire and thorns. "If you didn't have a soulmate… if you never had a mark… what would you think of them? Do you think you'd still love them?"

Flynn hummed a little, "Well… I probably would still be really good friends with him. I can't imagine not being friends with Yuri. But, as for love? I can't say. I never had a chance to ever look at anyone any other way or even just have misdirected emotions. Yuri at least got a year of that…"

"I had ten seconds."

And Estelle would never have that, to begin with… In all likelihood, she would never feel love, to begin with because her future had been prearranged. She was chattel to be sold for status and wealth and that was it. She envies Flynn for that chance but she also afraid when she sees him blank out.

When sometimes he leaves the room and she hears a grunt of pain as he snaps himself back into reality.

In the end the longer she knows Flynn the more she thinks it be better if soulmates were gone, to begin with.


	8. Hearing of the other side

**I don't know anything... and I was going to make tales tarot art but some groups already doing that so I might as well delete that shit because why bother when people have already done it and they're better artists**

Yuri couldn't believe it, "You mean the Union doesn't mandate soulmates?"

Karol shrugged his shoulders as the walked along the way to Emhead hill. "Well, yeah. I mean, there's no real way to enforce it."

Yuri remembered though the way the knights would actually walk around checking their bands. He remembers the way there were necessary rewards to keep you fed if you proved you were properly wearing your band. He remembers so many little things that were just always there prodding at you to keep your band on. That if you didn't get a mark you needed to be corrected.

There was this one kid- he thinks her name was Delilah- who took off her band and refused to wear it beyond getting food or keeping the guards happy. She hated it, said she didn't want to be someone's wife. And then one day the knights caught her and lamented that she was too old to mark now. Yuri never saw her again and when he asked all he got were quiet looks and the statement from Hanks to keep his band on.

"People without marks... children... they won't grow up right. The mark doesn't just tell you who to love. It keeps us healthy and unless fate decides otherwise a person without a mark needs to be removed for the good of the community."

And when the three of them asked Karol of the matter he quirked an awkward brow. "It's just not that big of a deal in the Union. I mean, yeah most people have soulmates but it's all voluntary."

Yuri looked at the band glinting on Karol's wrist, "So you volunteered?"

Karol laughs nervously and rubs the back of his head. "Yeah… I just figured it be easier than trying to figure it all out."

"Should it be that easy?" Yuri blurted. "I mean, love is supposed to be the most complicated emotion you'll ever feel so why is it supposed to be simple?"

A silence falls and Rita snorts, "Wow, that is more profound than I ever thought you could be."

Yuri rolls his eyes and gives a deep heavy sigh because you know what he can be deep as fuck too, ya know. Karol carries himself awkwardly and mutters, "Everything else in life has been hard so what if I want things easy… Besides if I don't…"

And Yuri has been listening well enough to know that this has to do with a girl. There's a part of Yuri that is annoyed at the notion of making such an important decision in hopes luck will give you what you want but he also gets it. You want it to be easy and you want to be happy.

But soulmates have frankly made him miserable.

And here's this kid who actually gets to choose to be free of that… To just not be in love because of some little design on his wrist. To not need to see a person or else your brain starts to slowly collapse in itself. But it does leave him wondering…

"People without marks… they any different than us?"

"Um, not that I know of. A lot of people still get them at some point so I actually don't know a lot."

Rita is the one who stops, "Wait… they can get them past puberty?"

"Geez, what kind of system does the empire use? Of course, you can get them whenever. It's just better for you if you get it younger."

So that's it? It's as much of a lie as he thought it was… Flynn- he knows Flynn has to know this. Why the hell did life have to hand them all the shit cards? Always being told that there was no other way to live without soulmates and here Karol is saying that if they had been born in the Union Flynn wouldn't have nearly died from drug abuse or Yuri could have been left alone for not loving Flynn like he was told he should have.

"If you loved him more he wouldn't have taken all those pills."

Just the more he thinks about the more- the more- more-

His body drops to the ground and he can't move. He hears the yelps of concern and the fear for his safety but Yuri is familiar with this. He let it get too personal so now his mark is punishing him. Flynn will usually sob and say stuff while his body is content to stop all function and force him to think about Flynn and only Flynn.

God… They could have had the chance to be apart from this.


	9. Now that you're gone

**fel: if you wanna write easy angst on a whim... just write Flynn. Flynn was built for angst**

Flynn was somewhat confused when Captain Shw- ah, Raven came by to see him as Flynn sipped on a glass of wine trying to unwind and get some brief semblance of order in all this post-Zaude chaos. "How ya doing?"

Flynn rubs his fingers against the grain of the table. "Good. Just… you know just trying to relax or something."

He slipped in the chair next to him and poured himself a glass as well. "I heard you're still asking for them to find his body."

Oh- this shit again. "I don't want to bury an empty casket again."

There's a long silence before Raven speaks once more.

"It does get better." His face must curl or something of the sort because Raven pours him more wine. "Speakin' from experience it's hard but it gets easier."

Well yeah, that's how the grieving process works in general. Flynn gets that and you know he'd just like some peace so he could have time to just get out all his frustrations and feelings. That he's never going to- fucking hell!

Flynn would just like for everything to be normal for ten minutes. A sigh slips out, "Did… when you died in the war did they- you know?"

"Uh, really wasn't enough time… We both died kinda quickly so it's not like we gotta a chance but I can tell ya that I know I felt miserable when I first woke up. Kinda empty and in pain while my body fixed itself."

"Like you're numb?"

A solemn nod, "Yeah."

Flynn had been taking Grievances subtly too but he also knew he shouldn't indulge more than needed but they made him feel far closer too normal than he'd been in what he knew was two weeks but felt like months. The silence returned and Flynn wondered what Raven wanted him to ask or what he even thought Flynn might want to ask but he couldn't think of a single question he didn't already know the answer to in some way.

So asked one that felt easier, "Um… this may sound dumb but would you help me with some paperwork?"

"Paperwork?"

"Yes. I don't actually understand all of this… I'm not telling his highness that I'm not fully qualified but… I most certainly am. I mean, I'm not entirely sure what some of these forms are and I'm a little afraid to ask."

A snort, "Eh, why not."

Flynn's grateful and he raised for a small toast as they take a long sip. It'll be hard living without Yuri… Hard getting his emotions back in order. Just…

He leaves and decides he's going to sleep and before he goes to Hypionia tomorrow. Something about rampaging monsters on a new town. Just some peace before more chaos and Flynn wondered what the hell they were going to do about that catastrophe hanging in the sky. Rita said she was working on it but he still wondered what they could work out in the first place. He sighed and was again met with another surprised of Estelle.

"Lady Estellise, why are you up?" It had to be pushing three in the morning.

"I couldn't sleep." She shrugged innocently and he noted the bit of red in her eyes. Silently they end up leaning against the wall holding hands. It's just simple comfort between them, "I still don't want to believe it."

Flynn nodded with a small hum.

"Is it really completely gone?" Estelle asked and he felt a pit burn in his stomach at the cloying emptiness of where that emotion once was and now void that itched under his skin.

"Yes. It doesn't hurt either."

"I want to go with you tomorrow."

"But-"

Estelle's eyes steeled, "There's no reason for me to wait around in Zaphias when I can be useful elsewhere." And there's no use stopping of her whenever she has something in mind.

"I'd be happy to have you with me."

"You're not alone, you know."

Looking at Estelle with dim light painting her hair and- he waved goodbye and entered his room quickly.

_Is it worth it?_

Yuri's dead and he's been thinking about it for years how if you are free that love in all its forms is finally free to experience again. He's free… and... For years he couldn't feel anything outside of companionship and-

He's started to feel things towards people- deep friendship, care, just affection…

"I don't want to feel that yet." There hasn't been a funeral yet- or time- or-or-or-

Flynn punched the wall and screamed into his arms.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Come morning, Flynn hates it but he has to get out of bed and move out to do what is needed and a part of him wishes he could stop time for an hour. Just enough for him to say he's ready and fine. Instead, he gets up and dons his uniform.

Brush your hair, rub the sleep from your eyes, do what you can to quickly clean the smell off your body, take a pill, slap the tears out of your cheeks, put on a professional face. Okay, he can do this. He's the commandant! He's in charge… He's got everything under control!

Everything

He doesn't mind that he's struggling to sleep while they ride over to Hypionia or that he's just feeling emotions. Stray, rampant, unexplainable emotions that he hasn't felt in his control for so long and it has him so confused but also happy.

_It's under my control._

It's Flynn's own free will and it's his own feelings to experience as he looks at all these people in his life and his chest is light in the heaviest way.

He's dead.

He can actually say he thinks Estelle is beautiful in any way. He can say he cherishes the stubborn rigidness of Sodia. He can just- just- feel!

Wonder if he will have to burry an empty coffin after all…


	10. I love you

**the only reason these are a random series of drabbles is because I was too lazy to make an actual full fic with a long over arching story**

"I hate you!" He screamed out at him as his anger crackled and boiled on the surface while tears welled in his eyes. "I love you. I love you- I hate you! I wish we never met. I wish you would just disappear and never come back."

"I love you- I- I- I can't take this. I can't live like this. I don't want to," So many tears.

Guilt. There is guilt in him. So much guilt over what he's done. The thought leaks in his brain often enough at the edges of sleep on days like this.

They hadn't meant to start up a fight between them. Hell, everything had been going absolutely great until... shit, what did start this whole thing? They were talking about the future and taking down Alexei. Simple things like what will come next and how they were still not fully compromised but they were going to head out tomorrow and kick his ass at Zaude.

Of course, Yuri knew why. It's because he talked about how even when he was off with his guild, he'd make sure to visit enough that Flynn could stay healthy. Yuri knew better than to remind Flynn about how he could never truly get away from Yuri. That at a certain distance and enough time between seeing each other both their brains would literally snap and they'd essentially just be a two meat sacks.

He shouldn't have brought it up and he did and that slowly devolved into an argument and that devolved into shouting that devolved into screaming. Screaming and screaming and fucking screaming at each other till Flynn pinned him down and kissed him instead of punching him like his fist was obviously planning to do. That kiss was more a headbutt and it hurt like hell.

"I love you!"

Is it wrong that he pitied Flynn every time he said those words at him? That any time Flynn expressed affection a part of him thought there was always a lie in it. That even though he should be pissed that Flynn is fighting him over at this point nothing he's just melancholy. He gets why Flynn's anger gets the best of him when it's brought up. He gets it and sometimes Yuri blames himself because he was so caught up in wanting his free will, he missed that Flynn was in pain.

If he had stopped focusing on how much it sucked to have a soul mate when he could care less, he might have stopped to notice when Flynn started swallowing Grievances like they were candy. Maybe he should have just given up and said he was fine with the lie because all he's done is make Flynn miserable.

"I should have never let you take those pills in the first place."

Yuri doesn't think Flynn has actually smiled at him in years. That anything from Flynn came from anywhere really genuine because his eyes just haven't set the same. There's always this undercurrent of rage and resentment.

"I hate you!"

Before that mental breakdown, Yuri knew that while it was strained and they both didn't want it none of what Flynn said of did with him was a lie. That when Flynn laughed it was because he meant it and maybe it's because this is the longest amount of time they've spent actually talking and being together since they left the knights that he's realized how strained their relationship was.

Flynn's body is shaking over his and tears mixed with snot are drooling onto Yuri. It's a hesitant hug that he pulls Flynn into and he wishes he could do anything more. It feels like a giant joke these marks. Everyone around them either doesn't have them or didn't even need to get them in the first place. One big giant lie that they get to be dragged along in.

Would they have stayed friends if they weren't soulmates? Would Yuri still be in the knights? Would they both be just better? What they have now is a sense of obligation they call love.

Fuck love! If Yuri had wanted it he could have gotten it his own damn self but instead, someone came up with the bright idea to just let a machine do it and call it fate. They could have worked this out on their own times but instead-instead- Flynn's body shakes into his own.

_If I had just said fuck it to my own happiness… I just let the mark tell me what to feel… would we both have been better off?_

_I'm sick of being the reason you cry._

"I love you."


	11. Walk Alone Together

**felinis: ...I return**

Aspio is a city where the light doesn't touch and the people walk together while alone. They had a rule- more a policy record what the marks look like so you know who to avoid. That while love is a thing you can enjoy that ultimately you should not seek it out. It will distract.

Do not love anything but your work.

Of course, there were always exceptions. Happy couples and even families in Aspio but they were an exception and not a rule. Usually the result of someone coming in after finding their perfect match. After living in the world.

Rita… Rita liked this system. It meant no one could control her. That's what love is, isn't it? Control. Looking at the people so caught up in each other so bound to looking each other in the eye whether or not there was anything you could ascribe as love in it she could only think of them as controlled by that unknown force called emotions.

Emotions mean you can betray and blastia don't so Rita focuses on that.

Blastia will keep her safe.

The soulmark on her wrist was relatively new and nobody in Aspio matched it and that was good. She can just walk as she pleased because nobody would change the rhythm her life had fallen into. Nobody would change anything… At least it should have been that way if not for a few idiots and their accusations of her as a thief.

It's fine though… Because none of them are it. None of them will take her control. Rita's emotions are hers even if she feels them through a fog. Even if she sometimes wished she did feel them like the way they should be felt.

This is the way Aspio works. Lonely people walking together and Rita was fine with that.

But, when Estelle looks at her… When she smiles- when Rita fears for her life and her safety. When she woke up to Estelle casting healing artes on her like a guardian angel… When Estelle is just- just- Estelle!

This isn't fair. Estelle isn't Rita's soulmate. She's not but when Rita holds Estelle for the first time in weeks in that hallway in the Zaphias palace in a hug and admits all the fear she had that Estelle was gone forever she thinks about how she wants to.

If they were soulmates… if Rita gave control to Estelle…

She wouldn't mind giving that up for her. She wouldn't mind doing it all for her.

Don't say it. Never say it. Because if Rita says it then it becomes real and she'll have to live with the inevitable rejection that is to come. One day she'll find her real soulmate and then this feeling will be snuffed out never to light again.

Estelle

Why couldn't it be Estelle? In Rita's mind, there's no clearer answer but the mark hasn't done anything to her like how it should.

She's tired of always living with fog and gunk of this waiting for a soulmate to set her emotions in her heart. Rita wants to feel. Truly feel. She wants to live and experience all the emotions welling inside her to the fullest.

She needs to be free of this. She needs to- but then… She can't take the choice from Estelle. Estelle has to want her back. She'd never want someone like Rita though. How could anyone… Estelle is wonderful and perfect. She deserves the best match fate could create. So it doesn't matter that Rita is hiding her love and emotions deep inside her chest like a waterfall waiting to gush.

Walk alone together. She just has to do that.


	12. I hope

**...don't tell anyone I haven't really worked on my big bang fics...**

"I was the one who ruined it." Flynn knows he shouldn't be so soppy to say that. Knows but says it anyway as he uses Repede as a makeshift pillow ever grateful that he's allowed the comfort. Flynn has had to much time to think on the words he's said and things he did.

_You're not coming back._

He hadn't been thinking about it until he saw an argument between a couple on board that escalated to a familiar degree that forced him to retreat.

Flynn hadn't realized until people started asking but he wasn't sure anymore what their relationship outside of that loathsome word. What was he to Flynn? That was what stung and peeled grinding at his flesh from the inside of his ribcage.

Because… he didn't know if what they were could be called friends. Not after how much Flynn pushed him away. Tried to pry their relationship apart for what even? He didn't even know what Yuri was doing for work before the wanted posters came.

When he actually stopped to think about it he didn't know a lot of things. He just assumed. He assumed a lot of things. The night before Zaude he had thought about how he felt pitied that Yuri would be forced to drop everything just to keep him well... It was an obligation but…

At Mantaic by the cold pool of the oasis he'd been ready to seriously hurt Yuri. If anyone else had seen him- taking the law into his own hands- all these disregards for the law all these harsh actions and yes, Flynn had asked Yuri to quit the knights and yes he wanted Yuri to in any way keep that promise he made but he didn't want this. He didn't want a murderer.

He didn't want someone who threw out the rules like they were scraps of paper and he didn't want someone who was constantly frustrating him by how often he got in trouble and how that reflected on him. Yuri couldn't possibly understand the frustration of having people talk behind his back about having a soulmate who was always being thrown in jail.

Yuri made him furious constantly and if he could Flynn would hate him. He would hate him because he wanted so much to feel more than slight irritation at all this but every time that little prick and he wasn't thinking how Yuri killed a man and how that action could have hurt people even with all the good intentions. Instead he was thinking things that were benign and irksome like how pretty Yuri's hair was with the glow of the moon. About how it been weeks since he'd brushed hands with his soulmate and how that embrace would be…

How it disgusted him but also how hard he wished that Yuri could for one day just know the hell Flynn went through. Why living with him at the center of his thoughts made Flynn sometimes wish that Yuri would up and die. How he sometimes wondered if his mother never thought to take Yuri in would they have met? Or would it all at least been delayed?

Either way the mark- Yuri- his condition- this- everything that was happening- it all made his blood boil.

Amid all of it he grabbed Yuri by the shirt and smacked his lips against his and bit hard enough to draw blood. "I hope you snap harder than I do some day. So you can feel half the agony I do."

Flynn did that- he said that…

_You've said worse_

Over the years he's said so much worse. If Yuri were alive would he hate him? At the very least resent Flynn for all the horrid words and gestures he threw over the years. Would he pity Flynn entirely? What if Yuri was completely free of his own will would he say of Flynn and his actions

What? What!

They were barely friends. They barely could relate. They were distant and broken with their emotions torn and Flynn caused it all.

_I ruined everything _

And it's too late to fix it. To take back all the times he's told Yuri awful things about how he hoped the mark eventually would make him suffer.

"I hope you reach a point where you struggle not to say my name at the start of every sentence."

"I hope you learn how awful it is to feel like you need to hold me to feel safe."

"I hope you struggle to balance the pills you need to take so you can function without me."

I HOPE

"I hope somehow you can hear me say I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I never wanted to stop being friends."

**i haven't really been posting myself a lot. This is both just being busy and honestly, I'm tired. I really am. I really am just tired of being Fel and being grown up. I'm tired of being a kid. I'm tired.**  
**As a joke I ended a dumb crack self-insert fic with how I don't get happiness and how I was tired with the fic and fandom and it was a joke then but it's not wrong. I am tired. I want to disappear and quit being Fel. I've done this a lot over the years and I think it may be time soon. I'm not gonna abandon any fics but social media, shit like that... I don't want it anymore. I don't need it anymore. I finally don't feel a hole will open and swallow me if I stop. But I can't. I'm not supposed to. Because this all prep for becoming an adult and entering the creative workforce. No matter how much I want to scream**


	13. One Day You'll Hate Me

You have to wonder with scum like Cumore and Ragou who in the world could have a heart as black to be their soulmate. Who was ever gonna be a perfect match for such scum? And Yuri wondered if when they died for the briefest moment would that person grieve.

Personally, he didn't think it was worth it.

All he knows is the suffering they caused and the people their actions killed and tortured- broke in a way you can never repair. You don't lock someone up from their soulmate and do- you don't snap them like that! It's not just cruel it's worse than just killing them.

So fuck Flynn for telling him he was wrong for taking the law into his own hands and fuck the world for allowing people like that to get away with being so needlessly cruel in a way only they can be.

"It's not just killing one person Yuri. Think of their soulmate-"

"Anyone who could love someone like that deserves to die from the shock too."

He wanted to take it back. He really did but he was careless and a fool. No one deserves… any of this. All of this soulmate crap. A life bound to another person or worse waiting in a muted hell until that so-called love arrived.

But then he remembers those lifeless doll eyes of the people in the basement who hadn't yet been turned into monster food. The way their bodies sat there moaning in pain. No one could love someone who would do that… but then again that's not quite it.

That person would simply be the only one who could never hate them. Those sky eyes not full of anger but more disappointment and frustration. Never hate and even less anger.

_I want you to be able to hate me._

"You think any of this is right? Vigilante justice and ignoring the law?"

"Laws that ignore the people hurt in the now? Laws that keep people starving and suffering while bureaucracy takes its sweet time?" Laws that if he had born anywhere else could mean he never need a soulmate.

That they could be free.

"You can't just do as you please."

"Says the drug addict!"

Before he knew it they were wrestling in the sand fighting and screaming as they pulled at each other. It was anger- hot and burning- but also- Flynn is beautiful even covered in sweat and sand.

Even with a split lip. That pulling his brain- that buzzing telling him to say words that he knew weren't his but as they panted and Flynn broke into that sweet dream filled gaze that turned Yuri's stomach.

He practically bit into his lip and tongue blood spilling in Yuri's mouth as he whispered, "I hope you snap harder than I do someday. So you can feel half the agony I do."

It's not the first awful thing of this nature Flynn has said to him when they fight like this. In fact, this is where they always end up and he wished so much he could rip out that mark and put an end to this joke.

"I love you, Yuri. I love you and I won't see you walk down this path."

_You hate me. Just say you hate me._

He hates the warmth in that gaze. He hates the bruising gestures as Flynn holds him. He hates everything that Flynn is because of that mark. Hates the fog entering his brain telling him to think of how much he loves that strength of heart. That he-

_Shut up! It isn't real! It's never been real._

"I won't stop doing what needs to be done."

"And what is that? Killing men like Ragou and Cumore? Fine, they're scum but what of people who are in the middle? What about people who don't deserve death?" Don't touch him! Don't touch him with this fake love and emotion.

Yuri pulled away and he didn't look back because if he did he's sure the mark would win. That he would snap and that thought to kiss Flynn- say words he didn't mean- "I'll cross that bridge when I get there."

"Yuri, we're not done here!" Fight it! Yuri has been the strong one all this. Fight it. Fight it! That hand grabbing him- that voice that isn't his yelling in his head. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to be upset. He wanted this to be a fight like he could have with anyone else.

But instead, he kissed him. "I wish you could hate me."

He kissed Flynn and ran.

And for the first time in Yuri's life, he wished that Flynn really did love him. Not romantically even, just cared about him. That what they had was real and what they could feel was real but that would involve them having a choice. Nothing between them had been real since they were children.

Nothing was real now and they both knew it. It didn't matter what Flynn had to say about the path he walked because those thoughts would never be real. Never truly what Flynn meant.

_Hate me. Please, hate me._

**this entire soulmate series is just me having a personal joke over an AU where Yuri and Flynn want a divorce but literally can't**


	14. You Are Free

**so ff doesn't let me do strikethroughs so just assume everywhere is is underlined is meant to be that**

Yuri woke up with his head splitting and his body in pain- aches rattling throughout his frame and a soreness in his marrow. The last thing he remembered- the last thing- Zaude! He lurched up and screamed as he grasped his side where he was stabbed.

Right, that Sodia stabbed him and then he fell.

_ How am I not dead?_

It all looked like his room in the Comet- did they catch him? Was everyone okay? What happened? Flynn-

Spinning. His head is spinning. If he moves- oh god, gonna hurl!

"You're awake." The voice catches him and to his surprise, Duke is forcing him back on the bed. "Perhaps I moved you here too soon."

Yuri tries to ask what he means but all that comes out is a groan. His head is still aching and he's starting to sweat. "Calm yourself. You'll snap if you try to move too much right now."

Snap? What does he- where is Flynn?

_Why isn't your love with you? __What's wrong with me?_

His breaths are coming out short and heavy and the corners of his vision are going spotty. Why is he trembling? Why is he? "You'll need to ride this out and then you can take the Grievances."

Grievances? Why would Yuri need Grievances? He tries to yank Duke's arm and speak but- shaking- he just ends spitting bile on himself and crying. If he's needing that then is Flynn- no, it can't be! Flynn's not dead.

Flynn couldn't be dead

_You love Flynn too much for that_

His head is screaming and that buzzing won't shut up. It won't shut up. It won't shut up! It won't shut up! All this static screaming in his head as Yuri screamed on the bed trying to grab his head only to be pinned down.

It just gets louder and thicker till the only thing he's processing outside the pain is how much he wants it to- to-

Static

It's just static. His eyes go wide and glassy and his mouth hangs open as drool starts to pool on the pillow. Static so loud and- words. Words echoing in his brain that seem to punch through all the cotton.

The feeling is familiar but there's no way to place it other than a pain that's always lived in his brain. His nose is bleeding and Yuri isn't sure if his eyes are working as it's all a blur.

Scared. He's scared.

_Something is very wrong with me! __Flynn_

_Why can't I shut up that noise? __Flynn_

_Why does that thought keep…? __Flynn_

Of course, Yuri loves Flynn. That's what the black ichor dripping down his nose says. That's why he can't stop thinking that name that's what the mark that lives in his body controlling chemicals says. He's laughing and convulsing in pain. It hurts! Stop it! Stop it!

_You didn't love Flynn enough_

That's why- That's why-!

He blacked out a few seconds later.

When Yuri finally woke up he was no longer in pain but his head was foggy and- _I love Flynn- _he kept hearing thought rattle mantras about… How lovely the shade of Flynn's eyes were and how his form with a sword was so strong but elegant. How the scars Flynn had were attractive and that he liked to just hear him rattle about boring things because the passion was so poignant.

Looking over the mark on his wrist lovingly Yuri giggled.

_What is wrong with me? __I love Flynn exactly as I should._

There were so many alarm bells going off in Yuri's head about something he couldn't place being wrong with him. He didn't even register Duke was still there because he was so caught up in his mental fixation on a beautiful and perfect man like Flynn. "How do you feel?"

"Where's Flynn? I need him." He couldn't be without him- couldn't be without his soulmate!

_I have to love him! I'm scared_

"First take these so your head clears," Those pills and water make his mouth sour.

"My head is clear." In fact, Yuri was starting to feel pretty great with even the pain in his body subsiding.

"You were dead for two minutes on that tower, Yuri Lowell. I assure you that your body is not fine and neither is your mind until you take these."

He smiled, "No way." Something is wrong with him. "I don't need it but thanks for saving my life. I mean it." No, he needs those pills! Besides, if he takes them then… Isn't Flynn cool when he rides into battles? He really fits the knight in shining armor. This is like when

"I insist."

"But will you make me?" Flynn wouldn't take pills either

"Yes, but only because it will mean all the effort I put to save you would go to waste." No- Yuri can't- He's shaking again._ Just let me think straight!_ He just needs Flynn. He just needs to see him and get his body regulated. Yuri knows how it works- he'd seen Flynn when- He should just leave and find Flynn and then nothing else will-

The pills end up down his through by force and it's like swallowing a chunk of vinegar along with a disgusting honey element. Gross! Gross! His head is splitting again and it hurts-

Why had he been thinking like that? Why had his head- just why? The relief that flooded through him made his eyes sting and Yuri grabbed his shoulders to assure himself that he was okay. That he was himself.

Those thoughts and things from a few minutes ago were still there but it was far quieter. Silence where he could think again, and it made tears break out. No way. Yuri doesn't cry! Just doesn't! He's not but there's just a hole in his head and his chest where a weight of cotton stuffing had been.

Was he relieved? Was he grieving? He didn't know. He couldn't say for anything other than looking at his wrist and seeing that of mark the horror kicking in the back of his mind said it would return. That it wasn't the end.

That once those wear off, he'll go back to that static.

"While the living partner will potentially die from the shock they also expel the device regulating the soulmark should their partner's heart stop long enough. In rare cases where they are revived the soulmark will go into an overdrive where it erases all other thoughts except those referring to their soulmate unless treated."

"So… in many ways it's similar to overdosing on Grievances?"

"That is a way to put it, yes."

Was that how- is that how Flynn lives? It had at most been a few minutes but in that time Yuri felt like everything thought he had was swallowed whole by something he couldn't control or explain. The worst part though was despite all of it and how much something in his head had been screaming at him it had also been warm.

It had been comfortable. Addicting.

And it's still there just waiting.

_"I know you said that Flynn needs the contact but… is he going to stop?"_

_"Depends. It can be really hard for anyone to care about anything else unless you buy the right medication. Is it really so bad though? You'll have a lovely soulmate who'll do anything for you at the drop of a hat if you wait a few weeks."_

_"Who would want that? That's disgusting!"_

_"You dumb or something? That's why they're such a large black market for these things."_

Yuri felt like such an idiot. He'd always thought it was just a loud voice pressing at Flynn's mind but this was... If Flynn had been dealing with that for over three years then no wonder it all sickened him. No wonder- _that's why I should love Flynn more than ever!_

"Shut up!"

If Flynn could live with this then so could he. Yuri could be strong like Flynn. It be nice to be held by those strong arms. He just needed to focus and take the pills when it got to be too much. Just meet up with everyone and learn to balance himself.

"Flynn… he's… his mark is gone now?"

"Yes. Though your situation is likely permanent."

Good. As long as Flynn is free then it's good. He can live with this. Yuri can deal with this.

Focus.

Just focus.

He's steadying his breath as he rests at the table unaware that Duke is long gone as he tries to calm down. It's okay because Yuri knows how he feels. He knows this a lie. This is just the mark messing with his head and not him. It's not.

But all that guilt he felt for everything he did to Flynn emotionally. For not even being willing to try to love him and stop him feeling the need to run away with pills.

_It's because I didn't love him like I should._ _I didn't do anything wrong._

_I wanted him to hate me. I wanted it to be real if it was ever going to happen_

_You were just afraid it could actually be true. That fate actually existed and picked someone for you_

_It was always controlled! Always._

Just be happy he's free. Just be happy that Flynn finally can live without this. Yuri hates that he's still crying. That he's still sobbing lightly.

When was the last time he even cried?

Free. Just focus on the fact that Flynn is free.


	15. Fire without Smoke

Judith was beginning to wonder if love truly was a cruel joke played on mortal men to make them suffer. A cursed blight created to drive them insane and force ties so they could never run away. Not from each other. Not from one another.

She wondered this because the more she stared at love and the people who experienced it the more it seemed design for pain.

Krytia do not have soulmates in the same way that humans do. Soulmates were meant for seeing who in the community would make your home happy and who would help best raise a child. It was not framed around love like with humans but societal convenience you took to help family's run smoothly.

Though, she did wonder and hope that her parents might have had love. That deep down they had cared for each other more than to just birth a child. Technically there was no way they could be anything but infatuated at the very least. The mark ensured fidelity but unlike human's specific form of marking these kept a person from cheating and nothing more.

But then again… her birth only proved they laid together enough to make her and nothing else. Growing up in that carefree stagnant city there were plenty of Krytian couples and they all seemed decently happy. They never seemed to resent or bicker like the human hearts she would come to see.

No, they were content at the very least. Maybe resigned was a better word.

Judith's turn would come soon and then she'd get her mark and see who fate said would be best for the good of the Krytia.

Not for her of course.

No, and that should be fine. It is fine.

Looking at love among humans, of the way it tears and shreds people, at how much loving another destroys them she can't help thinking how much she loathes the idea of feeling it for herself. Because love is apparently wonderful and burning with passion and the fire of an inferno but it cloys and clings till it suffocates and destroys like smoke.

Love heals and hurts and she does not like the idea that one day that emotion could burn and reside in her. Or if it does already, when will it consume her?

Ba'ul will whisper to her that it is fine. That it is okay.

_But is it?_

What if the longer she travels with these people and stays in Brave Vesperia the more she is tempted by it? What if she might already be? And what if that person already has a soulmate and they will never be able to love her without tragedy? What then?

Judith doesn't want that! She doesn't want pain and anxiety haunting in her thoughts about the impending day when she has to look at her wrist and see who it is. She doesn't want the agony of having nothing at all and being left alone in a world full of matches.

What she wants… what she wants is for the flame to have no smoke. For love to come with no strings and agony. For caring and see hurt buried in their face to not dig in and make her think 'I understand'.

She wants peace but she knows it would drown her to live like that. To live a content bond with a content Krytian in a content house that she would think every day of destroying.

What she wants- what Judith craves is the feeling of love that does not destroy the life she knew and had so much that she can't go back. That loneliness would crush her and that not waking up to the messy hair of Karol as he groans for more sleep like a little kid with drool on the pillow; of Rita's furrowed brow not in a book as she leafs through the pages; that laughter like a tinkling bell of Estelle as Yuri jests with her; Raven playing games with her in jest; Yuri sharpening his sword and begging her for a spar.

These people- their emotions hurt her. Their pain and joy- fears and sorrows; all the anxiety and jubilation they share is a blessing and a burden that Judith knows will destroy who she is now. The fire and smoke will kill and change who she is.

That they will be a part of her. Those soulmarks mocking her from a distance.

The fire and smoke will consume her but that's not so bad.


End file.
